A nod to the law-life

Believe it or not, my life isn't all stir-fry and domestic happiness. The stuff necessary to one day practice law does, in fact, take up a substantial amount of my life. As proof, I present the following:

First, If you are a law student (or any graduate student) who hasn't yet consolidated your student loans:

Just Do It. Now.

You have 'til July 1, 2006 whether you are a 3rd year student or a continuing student. If you consolidate, you get to lock in at least a 4.7% over the life of the loan. If you don't, next year, and every year after it, you get 6.8%. If you don't have time to consider your options, my 2-cents would be to consolidate with your existing lender (half of you will have to anyways because of the single lender rule), because it'll most likely save you money in the long run. (Of course, the smart thing to do would be to *calculate* which option makes the most sense for you...)

Second, after a weekend of medium effort on the school front, with 5 weeks of school left, I'm pleasantly surprised at how far behind in school I am. Given that I got married, took my honeymoon over spring break, and had to miss a few weeks of school for a family member who was ill, I figure this isn't too bad.

• Community Property: 60 pages behind.


• Constitutional Law: 60 pages behind.


• Corporations: N/A -- didn't buy the book, going off an outline (I'll let you know how that turns out).


• Venture Capital Law: Unable to calculate. Have read one of the suggested additional reading books, but it wasn't formally assigned. I've done bits of the assigned reading from the handouts, but I expect to frantically cram the billions of handouts that he gave us into my head the day before the final (unless I can magically come up with some other time to do it).


• Intellectual Property: 15 pages behind.

So, in theory, I could catch up if I read for 270 minutes this evening (I average about 2 minutes per page). But, in reality, I'll probably only read the 15 pages for IP (only to have a new assignment due as soon as I exit that class tomorrow).

I'm very aware that the time where I can take care of life things (finances, cleaning, cooking for enjoyment, etc.) is quickly drawing to a close. Whether it's realistic or not, I feel like once it's time to buckle down for finals, that's it 'til August. There's finals, then bar review, then the bar.

Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. But, because I fear I won't be, I'll keep plugging through the life things that can't be put on hold 'til August and that pile of reading will most likely remain the same size for at least another week.

Finally, and if you have lots of Lexis points and you to are looking to procrastinate with other stuff before you buckle down for finals -- the Amazon Superstore ROCKS! In contrast, Westlaw's reward program is lame. I don't want anything in my point range on Westlaw. But for lexis, I just browsed amazon 'til I found stuff I wanted. Now, I can't wait to get my Mexican cookbooks, my Martin Yan -- Quick & Easy (remember Yan Can Cook?), another Yoga DVD, and All the Pretty Horses (I never read it, and figure having one unread pleasure book lying around for after the bar is a good idea).